Paradigm Shift
by bambertron
Summary: Hermione is haunted by the spirit of the vilest man to ever walk the Earth. Perhaps, though, reality is only what perception makes of it. Rated M for language, future content.
1. Act I

Disclaimer: I own nahsing. Nahsiiiiing! Really, though. Characters are all courtesy of J.K. Rowling.

Author's Note: This is my first fan fiction. Do please be kind? I've no betas of any sort, so proof reading has been up to me, and I do hope that I didn't miss anything. I did notice that I use commas a LOT. And very long sentences, or sentences that aren't technically sentences. Argh. Critiques welcome, it will help me grow into this process. Also, several things to note:

1.) Hermione is approaching 30. Roughly a decade has passed since the final battle.

2.) It's pretty AU.

3.) I don't give all the info at the beginning. For a rough back story, I would like to say that Hermione was hit by an extremely debilitating curse during the final battle that has left her right leg with very little mobility. I probably won't go too in depth. But, all the details regarding it, and regarding MOST THINGS occurring in this story will be explained in due time. Not really a 'HERMIONE THINKS ABOUT THE FACT OF THIS' kind of writer. I give detailed descriptions over time.

And now, without further adieu...

**Act I**

_In which, Hermione Granger may have begun hallucinating_

‡

"Granger."

Hermione continued grading papers as if she had not heard the drawling, sneering voice. Seeing as how it was shortly after lunch, but before Severus Snape's seventh year class, she could only conclude that he had come to berate her. After all, after lunch but _before _the seventh years was third year Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff double potions.

"_Granger_. If you do not _respond to me this instant_ I shall hex you into the afterlife so swiftly you will reincarnate as a _pygmy puff_," he hissed.

_Granger_ snorted in what could only be described as a decided lack of intimidation and scrawled a note in gold ink atop the essay on the top of her stack. (An interesting theory, Miss Tirion, but I regret to inform you that you cannot bypass the strict laws of transfiguration. Were you to roast a pig transfigured from another object and eat it, you would fall ill, and death may very well follow shortly after. **No food!**) Pushing a hand through her hair and finding it tangled, she glanced over at Snape hovering at the side of her desk as she attempted to extricate her fingers.

"Why, Professor Snape, you look rather peaked. Is everything quite all right?"

"_Who on earth teaches Ravenclaws about the uses of Transfiguration in Potions in their third year?_"

Students walking past the open classroom door – slammed open with a typical billowing of robes- winced in sympathy for the Transfiguration professor. Severus Snape in a mood was most certainly a terrifying idea.

What they didn't see was the lack of true venom in his eyes as he worked himself into a snit.

"Professor Snape, I assure you-"

"Don't you Professor Snape me, Granger. Teaching those dunderheads foolish wand waving in regards to-"

"_Dunderheads_? May Rowena Ravenclaw turn over in her grave, the day that dunderheads are placed in her house. It's no longer the Dark Ages, Snape, _foolish wand waving_," she managed to inflect the proper amount of sneering disbelief into it, warranting the most minute twitch of Snape's mouth at the very furthest right edge of his lips, "is fast integrating itself into more and more of the potions community!"

"And may they enjoy studying it at University, _not in the third year_!"

"I like to push my students far ahead of the mandated Ministry minimum curriculum, thank you, Severus," she said primly.

"You knew very well Thalia Longbottom would be incapable of resisting putting it into practice after you taught her this rubbish," he drawled with an air of righteous indignation.

"I knew no such thing," she said primly as she rose up from her seat, with Severus Snape muttering under his breath as she did so.

Being a genius was entirely too much work sometimes, she thought with a wry internal grin. It warranted impassioned speeches on ground breaking research completed in her time not consumed by House squabbles, youthful dilemmas needing resolved and teaching. And if it exasperated Severus, with whom she had taken a certain prickly friendship with as intellectuals, well… all the better. His amusedly embittered rants made her day.

Grasping her rather ornate walking stick, Hermione leaned heavily upon it as she rounded the desk and then began her limping progress towards the door.

"If you've a free period, which I know you do, you should help a crippled old lady shuffle and limp to the Headmistress' office. I need the forms to order some teaching aids to fill out before we begin this weeks session," she declared with a sigh of the long suffering.

"Crippled old lady, my arse," Snape sneered, "I've no doubt you'd sooner beat a man about with your cane than call yourself an invalid."

And thus they bickered on their way out the door, not noticing the miniscule glimmer hovering several yards behind Hermione.

It was so small, so inconsequential, that no one had noticed it for the last decade.

‡

Hermione's stomach rumbled traitorously. It was at least ten minutes since dinner would have started in the Great Hall, and the gurgling from her mid section was railing at her.

To top it all off, she had to _slowly sip_ the potion Snape had given her in teaspoon increments. A potion that tasted a bit like rotting sewer rat marinated in toxic sludge and dredged in ashes. _Honestly,_ she thought, _does he suffer under the hypothesis that if a debilitating curse is terrible, it's cure must taste exponentially worse?_ She suffered another sip that tickled her gag reflex and was relieved to find she had perhaps two more sips to go.

The potions master chose that moment to billow in with a leather bound journal that appeared to be weathered from many years of use, and a rather sinister looking book with a title in a language she did not know.

"Not quite done yet, Granger?"

Her nose crinkled. "Unfortunately. And it tastes so delightful, Severus. You really go the extra mile to make this pleasant." Sip.

He smirked, and murmured silkily, "I do live to please."

His expression becoming cool and professional, he strode over and flipped open the journal, _Accio_ing a never-ending ink quill to himself. "Is there anything worth noting thus far?"

Hermione chortled, taking her last sip and grimacing as she choked out, "Please, sir, may I have some more?"

"Granger."

It was amazing how one disdainfully, but amusedly sneered surname could speak a thousand reprimands.

"Thankfully, this round of experiments has not made my leg cramp violently. Then again," she noted with a withered smile, "It also has not eased the general pain the muscles general provide anyway. Ah, it seems to have…" She trailed off.

Snape's eyes grew sharp, "Problems, Professor Granger?"

"… er, the potion seems to have… relaxed the muscles, I'm not positive I could… ah, walk, that is, if I needed to. Without looking rather like Igor, that is. I feel… scatter brained, though. Hard to… grasp on to any one thought. Occlumency shields feel… devastated. I'm quite… er…"

Severus muttered curses under his breath as he scrawled new notes down within the journal, and crossed out or revised previous entries. Turning from her, he paced back to his desk and sat down to write, and open the tome he had brought in with the journal, flipping it open and referring to it.

Hermione rubbed a hand against one of her temples, and did not notice as the small glimmer wriggled through the air with as much of an air of desperation as a disembodied speck of minutia could manage. It landed somewhere in the bushy mass, and seemed to despair at the ill tended knots. But it still pushed towards her scalp, and then, through.

It felt a bit like a piece of ice had crept into her brain for approximately one second, and then it was over.

The glimmer came out the other side much brighter, and much more substantial.

"Er… Severus. Potential… side effect. Glittering balls of light come out of your head."

Snape looked up briefly, cursed profoundly, and returned to scribbling with even more barely restrained ire, as if the time taken up to have to write, rather than brew, was entirely _too much _to bear.

Hermione could not be bothered by this, though. Seeing as how the 'glittering ball of light' seemed to be expanding at a rather accelerated pace until a barely discernible silhouette was in front of her. _Dear Merlin, Severus is going to duplicate an army of Hermione's on accident until he is drowning in mounds of bushy hair, _she thought hysterically.

That thought did not stick, though, as the silhouette began to gain fine detail. A face, silvery and ghostly, with dark silver nigh on black for eyes. Neat, short clipped hair, as dark as the eyes. A thin mouth that expressed neither pleasure, nor displeasure, and a high, clear brow. A slim, rather scholarly physique and a severely outdated Hogwarts uniform completed the young man. He appeared young, but the solemn air about him could put him anywhere between sixteen and his early twenties.

Severus was far too occupied being aggravated at his latest potion for not going _exactly as planned _to drag his large nose farther than an inch from the paper he was writing upon.

He was also across the room, and did not hear Hermione. She had been startled out of her usual brash, confident voice into a murmur.

"Goodness. … er, who are… you? Did I just… give birth to a ghost out of my… head?"

The apparition appeared disgusted, "Merlin, no. That's quite disgusting, ma'am. And I," he said with a touch of arrogance so slight you almost couldn't pick up on it, in his ghostly voice that she had to strain to hear, "am Tom. Tom Riddle."

He was moving to put his hand out, as though she could shake it, when the name penetrated her potion induced scatter brain.

"SWEET HESTIA SCISSORING HERA," she screeched, scrambling from her seat and knocking it over in the process.

"Granger! Are you all right? What in the name of Merlin is going on? I thought I told you ghosts to stay out of my private laboratory!" Snape appeared to be torn between concern for his colleague, and ire at the unfamiliar ghost, and could not keep his questions to a minimum as such.

Hermione Granger was a staid, steadfast sort of individual. A veritable rock, the apple having not fallen far from its former Head of House tree. Cynical, perhaps. Jaded? A bit. Ridiculously intelligent and incapable of letting a train of thought go once it had possessed her? Absolutely. But of all her faults, being a shrinking violet was not one of them, and she was certainly not feeble hearted.

So, naturally, Hermione Granger fainted for the first time in her life.

A shame, as well. She might have found a sick, twisted form of humor in responding to the ghost claiming to be Tom Riddle, as his wavering, otherworldly voice queried in absolute, total mystification,

"What on _earth _is scissoring?"


	2. Act II

**Disclaimer**: Don't be silly. I don't own anything.

**Author's Note: **I got reviews! I'm so excited. C: Thank you for the exceedingly kind reviews. I almost accidentally typed refuse, but the reviews weren't garbage. How ridiculous of me. /ramble.

**Act II**

_In which, Hermione Granger debates how linear time is_

‡

"You would think that an apparition created from a figment of my own magic, the direct result of a faulty potion, would listen to me when I tell it to _shut up_."

The cool, wavering voice that responded was a few decibels below reality, but annoyingly persistent as it replied, "Madam, I am most certainly _not_ a creation of _your_ magic."

Hermione cut a sharp glare at the Ghost that Would Not Be Silent, before turning back to Headmistress McGonagall and sighing, "Has Severus discovered anything in the potion that could have caused this? My theory is that the phoenix ash, in conjunction with the banshee breath, combined to create a semi-sentient apparition, sustained by a fragment of my magi-"

"I have told you before, my presence is in no way-"

"If you interrupt me again, I shall be forced to find ways to bring great harm to an incorporeal being," Hermione hissed, "and they do not call me the brightest witch of my age for nothing."

"_I've_ never heard of you, and you seem to be having trouble understanding what I am telling you."

The ghost's expression clouded over, and his silvery emission of not quite true light dimmed in response. Hermione's face darkened over in a similar manner. And the headmistress was far too busy staring at the tag-a-long to the weekly tea she had with the aforementioned witch with something akin to pure, unadulterated horror. She had already asked Hermione how her mind could have created something so _perfectly_ akin to the former Tom Riddle, to which Hermione had haplessly shrugged and attributed to Harry's keen description. The ghost was not amused.

McGonagall cleared her throat, and in a slightly wavering voice, said, "Severus cannot find anything in the potion to link this startling side effect to, but told me to assure you, he is still looking. As it stands, he's called off further sessions until this matter is cleared up."

Hermione smiled, the edges of it bitter. "Ten years has yet to find one of these sessions making me fully functional again, I'm sure I can last a few weeks without tasting one of his atrocities."

Hermione could not stand to see the sad look on the headmistress' face, and began idle small talk about her Transfiguration lessons, which the elder witch gratefully took up with gusto. The ghost, in the absence of notice, dimmed until he was barely noticeable.

‡

As Hermione bid her former Head of House adieu, stepping onto the revolving staircase, she was almost startled as the door slid shut and a dimly flickering, silver light took up residence to her right. Her lips tightened into an unamused line as the ghost came into full view again.

"Even if you do believe I am a figment of your imagination-"

"Figment of my magic, a completely different story altogether. The first recorded inst-"

"Figment of your magic, right. It's still terribly rude of you to not at least introduce yourself to me."

"Hermione Granger, Transfiguration mistress and professor, master duelist."

"Quite a title. I don't believe I've heard of any witches or wizards named Granger… are your ancestors from the Continent?"

"No. I'm a muggle born."

At that, Riddle's ghost drew back as if burned. As she stepped on to the still hallway floor from the revolving stair, she gave the apparition her tight lipped, narrow eyed, fuming look promising pain that she oft times used to quell a particularly rambunctious class.

A bitter smile lit the edges of her lips. "Perhaps I'm in need of therapy. Creations of my own, even accidental, probably shouldn't have such an aversion to me. Freud help me."

Riddle, despite the sardonic humor, stayed at least five feet back and in the air, as if he were breathing and it might be contaminated about her.

His face going cold, and losing any trace of politeness, he hissed, "I am _not_ a creation of your feeble magic, Mudbl-"

Her wand was out in a flash. "So help me, if you finish that word, I will display for you a delightful exorcism spell that I learned whilst abroad. We'll see if your _impassioned_ arguments have any validity rather quickly that way, won't we?"

Hermione wished Snape were around to hear just how sneeringly, snarkily cold she sounded as she bluffed, despite her furiously pounding heart. _I may very well have to start researching exorcism incantations_.

Trembling with barely contained fury in mid-air, Riddle sank slowly to the ground, his translucent feet making no noise as he landed. As if it pained him, his words sounded cold as ice, and as if they had been strung up and dragged slowly out of his mouth.

"I am not a creation of your magic. I only remember feeling as though I were stabbed through a heart that did not exist anymore with something made of fire, and then your voice talking about some cup with two other voices. My… tether, I suppose I'd call it, was very weak, and only to _you_," he spit the word out as if it now disgusted him, "and I managed to draw some magic, and more awareness, until a wall came up. It wasn't until just recently that those walls came down and I gathered enough magic to appear as I am."

Hermione's face was painfully blank, and then a terrible suspicion began to dawn on her brow.

"… Hufflepuff's cup. And then, my occlumency shields…"

Her upper lip curled in utter disgust, before she gathered the message she wished to send in her head, turned and bellowed, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

A shimmering otter flew out of her wand and down the hallway at breakneck speed, as she tucked her wand away, gripped her cane and began limpingly stalking her way towards its final destination.

‡

"Fuckbiscuits? Truly, Granger, your eloquence knows no bounds. And it's so much more delightful to hear such language from an _ickle otter_," he drawled, the last two words oozing from his lips.

Hermione glared at Snape, tapping her cane impatiently on the ground.

"I needed you to understand the absolute, utmost importance and severity of the situation, Severus."

"No, no, I agree. Nothing in this world says _danger_ like fuckbiscuits."

"Severus-"

"_Merlin's sweet fuckbiscuits, Severus, I'm in trouble_," he snarked in a falsetto, before resuming his normal tone of voice, "I had begun to think that you had attained some degree of maturity in these years, but appare-"

"SNAPE!"

The potions professor promised himself he was _not_ cowed into silence by her bellow. He was merely being polite enough to let her get her fury out of her system.

Pointing her cane at the apparition that seemed intent on following her while balancing her weight on her good leg, she shakingly said, "I think it's real. This fucking ghost that will not stop fucking following me might very well be real."

"Fuckbiscuits," Severus said, rather eloquently.

"Language, Severus."

Riddle faded back into existence, seeming much more substantial now that the sun had gone down and he was in the dungeons. "Can not stop following you."

Bushy hair flew in many directions as her head whipped around as she snarled, "Pardon?"

"_Can not_. The entire time I have attempted, but failed, to leave an area of about two hundred yards of you," he said, his face looking as though even speaking to her lowered his standards and was poignantly distasteful.

"Do stop appearing as though you've a bad taste in your mouth when you talk to me. It makes you look like a dog with peanut butter on the roof of its mouth."

Severus wished he had the heart to smirk in the face of such dire consequences.

Hermione looked back at Snape, her voice much less sharp as she spoke to him. "I interrogated him on the way here. If this is a valid idea, than it means that when I destroyed Hufflepuff's cup, a portion of his soul torn from the rest before either of the wars tethered itself to me. Please tell me you know a spell to exorcise this thing."

Riddle looked taken aback.

Snape stroked the bridge of his nose thoughtfully with his index finger, before slowly shaking his head.

"If it is true that he is tethered to you personally from that moment, than I do believe further research is called for. A tether would have to tie to your magical core, or your soul, for it to be personal to you and you alone. And banishing him without knowing what we are stepping in to could be disastrous for you at best."

"This is impossible! In what way is there any indication that there is any shifting time from a linear state? Magical laws of physics regarding time are strict! How do I wind up with a young Riddle, whom I have never seen, in seemingly perfect detail according to McGonagall, from a cup that he turned into a horcrux long after he graduated from Hogwarts? And how on _earth_ did I manage to be the only one lucky enough to get Tom 'All Mudbloods Must Die' Riddle's teenage spirit, and no signs of that occurring with either Harry _or_ Ron that they've noticed, when they're pretty terrible at Occlumency?"

Hermione and Severus talked long past student curfew, and yet neither were any closer to answering any questions that they asked. Particularly not with a rather belligerent ghost seeing no need to help a _Muggle born_ banish _him_.

‡

Alone in her room, or so she was going to assume for her own peace of mind, Hermione tucked herself into bed morosely. A ghost with an anti-Mudblood agenda was tethered to her personally, and she had no idea why she wound up with that symptom, and neither of the boys seemed to. She resolved to owl Harry and Ron to gather details on their own experiences, ever the researcher, and pulled her covers up to her chin.

She couldn't quite shake the feeling of being watched, in mortal danger, and the urge to laugh hysterically until she broke down crying at the unfairness of it all, all at once. A murderous, Muggle born hating, supremacist ghost. And she'd thought a Kneazle was a difficult pet. She snorted, depressed, and attempted to clear her mind to get some sleep, so that she could use the whole weekend to research this tirelessly.

"Fuckbiscuits."


	3. Act III

**Disclaimer**: C'mon. Reeeally? No, I don't own it. That's the Rowling, who owns it.

**Author's Note**: Thank you for more delightful reviews! I do apologize for the delay in a new chapter, life came slamming at me. Minor family emergency, trying desperately to set up my third and final interview to get the job I'm attempting to, and a distinct lack of cigarettes. I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint, there won't be much plot forwarding in this one. It's more of setting the scene for how our steadfast heroine and our villainous ghost interact. The action will be starting soon, though. And I apologize that this one is a bit short. I promise to update again soon to make up for it. :3

p.s. Megii – Unique and interesting curses are sort of my thing. I'm well known for it amongst my circle. I've taken liberties with a war ravaged and scarred Hermione, and I am trying to keep it to a minimum… even with her past, I don't think she'd take it as far as me. ;)

**Act III**

_In which, Hermione Granger considers oblivion_

"That is such a disgustingly Muggle habit of yours, Mudblood."

Hermione rolled her eyes heavenward, taking a long drag off the confiscated cigarette. Truth be told, she'd let this particular habit go with the war. But when she'd caught the sixth year on the astronomy tower with them, she'd snatched them up and more than likely mentally scarred the child with her verbal lashing regarding the severe health implications and utter foolishness of having such a slovenly habit. And as he'd scampered away with a detention under his belt, she'd looked at the pack of cigarettes. Just looked, at first.

And then she'd recalled the past month of dealing with this awful ghost, and she'd put one to her lips and lit it with the top of her wand.

A month of this. A month without progress. A month of painstaking research, trying and failing to find a precedent for this glaring abnormality with absolutely no results to show for it. Harry and Ron were both unaffected in such a way, Severus had found nothing in his darkest of dark tomes, and consultations with professionals had yielded nothing. And worst of all, she was acclimating to it. The slurs didn't grate her as they had in the beginning, and screaming at him until her throat was raw had produced little result.

He was droning in that ethereal voice, naturally.

"… and you consider yourself _smart_," he sneered condescendingly, his translucent lip curling.

"I don't consider myself smart."

His face stilled into a suspicious stare.

"I _know_ I'm a bloody genius. My IQ is off the charts. I'm well aware of the health hazards of smoking, and the way in which the magical essence of witches and wizards can radically accelerate the growth of malignant cancers just as easily as it can help nullify them, based on the genetic make up of any individual person. You may have been powerful, but I outsmarted you as a fucking _teenager_. I outwitted you, and then I killed you. And I'm going to do it again. I am going to figure this out, and then I am going to exorcise you into the next plane of existence, and then I'm going to figure out how to destroy that plane of existence because hell is too good for you, especially since you and yours and your stupid _war_ and all of the pain and misery it inflicted upon this community, and you have the gall to come back from whatever shit hole your spirit resided in to _force me into this face fuck of pure and utter fuck uppery_!"

Hermione was getting very good at impassioned speeches in a pinch, as it seemed she had to recite one nearly every other day.

As such, Tom Riddle's ghost was suitably unimpressed.

She flicked the still burning cigarette through his incorporeal form as she stomped noisily towards the stairs.

"Do all of you filthy Mudbloods throw your trash just anywhere?"

"_Evanesco_!" she shouted, waving her wand towards the cigarette butt without looking, and then pausing in her stride to stare back at him and sneer condescendingly, "Did you forget that I'm a witch?"

‡

Hermione's quill scratched in bursts of fitful energy, mapping out Arithmantic equations to predict and help formulate her recent research theory. That it regarded adjusting spellwork to function as normal towards incorporeal beings- be they ghosts or poltergeists or what have you- was no coincidence. With summer fast approaching in the coming month, now was the time to dedicate herself wholly to the cause of ridding herself of her pesky ghoul. An enchanted piece of chalk hovered at the blackboard behind her, scribbling and mapping out her equations in complex charts and graphs in conjunction with her equations.

"You need an ogonek on the a before the graeca for that to work at all," was uttered from an invisible Riddle with as much derision as was possible.

"An ogonek puts an embellishment that would further tie the spell to the world of the living, and I am attempting to make a bit of death magic. With no ogonek, the a becomes a derivative of the ex and ties into the seven, making the graeca a tether to the aether."

"With no ogonek, the a amplifies the magic with no anchor and becomes chaotically uncontrollable. Are you trying to destroy me or kill yourself?"

Hermione rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, the ink on her knuckles smearing her forehead.

"If you don't shut up, I shall be open to both."

Riddle faded into existence, sitting in mid air as though slouched upon an invisible chair before rising and sinking to the cold stone floor. Stepping to the equation, he regarded it quizzically.

"How on earth does a Mudblood come up with such complex theorems?"

"How on earth does a half blood come up with such outlandish theories on the heritage of others?" she mocked, leaning back in her chair and swiveling to face him and her blackboard.

The translucent, silver face darkened several shades, as though he were a cumulonimbus cloud on the brink of releasing a torrent.

"You _dare_-" he began to hiss.

Hermione gripped her cane and stood up swiftly, lips drawn into a taut line with both pain and indignation.

"Yes, I _dare_," she snarled right back, "I _dare_. I dare question the theories of a madman, even if it only a sliver of a soul. Even if it only the sliver of a soul that has yet to form a terrorist cell of depraved cattle, cattle that are herded into attempting to destroy everything I hold dear. I came into this world with no preconceptions and found only beauty and wonder, and that was ripped away from me. I came out of _everything_ with tremors and a fucking limp courtesy of one of your peons, after fighting for the right to have the innocence and wonder that _you _stole from me. I am so sodding _tired_ of these speeches. Because they change nothing. You are only a fragment of the past, stuck in a hard won future that you have NO RIGHT TO ENJOY."

The words rebounded off the walls of her empty classroom.

Riddle, to his credit, remained silent.

Leaning heavily upon her cane, Hermione reached for the vial on her desk and swallowed it with a grimace. The shimmering black potion took the edge off of the pain, and left her feeling just a bit magically drained.

"Can't you just fade?" she asked tiredly, rubbing her eyes again, before she gazed steadily at him, and managed to say with no venom, no emotion whatsoever, "Can't you just fade away and pretend like you don't exist until it is so?"

Riddle walked without sound to her, and then through her as if she didn't exist as he had so many times before. But this time, he came out the other side just a little bit brighter. Fractionally. Marginally. She did not notice.

Tom Riddle did, and his eyes darted to the vial of addictive pain potion that Hermione only allowed herself once a week, and a small, cold smile formed on his lips.

"Not for a Mudblood."

Hermione turned on her heel and began limping towards the door.

"Professor," the ghost drawled with a sneer and a gleam to his bottomless eyes, "Aren't you going to fix your equation? You know that you cannot skirt past that ogonek."

"Suck my dick, Riddle."

Even with an upper hand, a chilling new prospect at the expense of Hermione, the spirit found himself fuming rather childishly at the fact that Hermione Granger always had the last word, as she crossed the hall into her private rooms and the wards against incorporeal entities fell into place.


	4. Act IV

**Author's Note:** I told you I'd make it up to you and update soon. :3 I do apologize about the time bouncing a bit, I've a terrible habit of that. And if I am far too insulting in my lack of geographical knowledge… uh, I have no excuse. I should have paid attention more in world geography back in middle school, I suppose. Google Earth helps, though. :B

**Disclaimer:** With a heavy heart, I regret to inform you that I do not own Harry Potter, or any characters affiliated with him.

**Act IV**

_In which, Hermione Granger teaches history_

‡

It was the first week of summer vacation for Hogwarts.

Hermione Granger steered her little scooter along the winding roads outside of Pizzorne with a smile on her face and a heart lighter than it should have any right to be. She even tilted her head back just a bit as she came upon a straight stretch of road and laughed, speeding up a little.

Tom Riddle could not escape past a certain point away from her. There was a leash to his proximity.

Laughter bubbled up in her again as she rounded a curve. She sincerely hoped that this yanked him about on his ethereal tether.

She had just known this vacation would be good for her.

Flicking her eyes towards the horizon, she noted the setting sun and her mirth died. Pulling a face, she began steering her scooter back towards the small bed and breakfast on the outskirts of the magical community that was several kilometers outside of Pizzorne, within sprawling mountain ranges. Riddle couldn't fully appear in full sunlight, but he would show his presence just as soon as dusk fell.

‡

"Where are we?" came the baffled, otherworldly voice from behind her.

Hermione turned from the railing of the balcony just off her suite, arching an eyebrow before turning back to the view of mountains, and in the distance, she could just barely make out the winking lights of Pizzorne proper.

"Basilisco di dormire. It's a rather small inn, just outside of Magia, the oldest wizarding community in Italy."

"Italy?"

She turned her head again and her smirk broadened.

"Didn't you notice us apparating to Lucca and then coming here?"

"No," the ghost responded stonily.

"Ah, so sunlight really is your kryptonite."

"My _what_?"

"Kryptonite. You've not heard of it? It's a very rare substance that can leech all of the strength and power out of a person."

Riddle's eyes widened, and then he started to look crafty… as expected. Hermione threw her head back and laughed, causing the spirit's eyes to widen again, and then narrow in fury.

"Kidding, Riddle. It's fictional, and from a Muggle comic book."

"I'm not amused, Granger," he spat.

"I am."

She left it at that as she slowly sank into one of the wrought iron chairs on the balcony, closing her eyes and enjoying the breeze that smelled of dinner cooking downstairs via the bed and breakfast's matron, and soft dew settling on the trees as evening turned fully into night. She didn't feel on edge.

She hadn't for a while.

Hermione wasn't positive when Riddle's arguments on her Transfiguration research had gone from infuriating her to challenging her to debate, or when his rambling diatribes against the universe, her personally, her as a stand in for all Muggleborns, or the institution of Hogwarts had become white noise that she was accustomed to, or even when their insults had begun to amuse her. She'd grown used to answering his questions regarding things that were foreign and novel to him, as his consciousness had shifted from so long ago. It was sometime in the past month, before school let out, but she couldn't put her finger on a precise moment. She was beginning to think that psychosis was setting in.

She opened her eyes when she heard him speak.

"It's so much better than England, and Scotland. Does the entire world have it so much better than Hogwarts?"

She occasionally forgot how young this Riddle was, and smiled condescendingly.

"I don't think Death Valley would agree."

"Death Valley?"

"A desert in America. I believe there's another wizarding community near there, since it's so isolated."

"Why is it so isolated?"

"Because, Riddle, it is a valley full of death."

Silence reigned as the young Riddle fumed at Hermione, while she grinned unrepentantly. Reaching onto the table for the vial of black pain potion, she uncorked it and downed it swiftly, grimacing as she reached for her glass of Chianti, taking a long, slow sip. She almost choked as the icy wind passed through her veins, signifying that Riddle had just passed through her. She glowered down at him as his form sat crossed legged, hovering just off the ground and an inch away from the wall.

"Why do you insist on doing that?"

"Because it bothers you, Mudblood."

"Well, at least chivalry isn't dead."

‡

Hermione woke up feeling churlish indeed. Her hand was tangled in her hair, and she noted that her leg was throbbing painfully as she extricated her fingers. Swinging her legs off the edge of the ridiculously plush bed, she rose painfully and limped heavily as she walked to the bathroom without her cane.

Turning on the water, she undressed and stared at the webbing of black veins on her leg, and the sunken muscle on her hip. An unknown curse. An unknown cure. Her fingers traced a line of black spidering up to her hip bone, until the steam rising from the shower cubicle informed her that the water was hot.

It only took the efficient witch five minutes to be out of the shower, and only a further three to be dried off and dressed.

Snatching her cane from the bedside table, she ambled out the door, grabbing the keys to her scooter as she went. She nodded her goodbye to the matron, declined a hearty breakfast- much to the grandmotherly woman's distress. The silver haired woman reminded Hermione of Molly Weasley in that she took personal insult to Hermione's thinness whilst residing under her roof.

Research was more important than food, and the beleaguered witch didn't think added weight would alleviate her hampered gait.

Mounting the scooter with more than a little pain, she set off on her way.

‡

Hermione lurched a little as she appeared in Pisa from the apparition point in Magia, and watched for a moment as more witches and wizards appeared as if from thin air, and waved their wands at themselves to appear in a semblance of Muggle clothing. She wasn't certain why she'd lingered in Magia for the better part of the day, but she now cursed herself as she realized it was nearly sunset. She could only hope that Riddle had sense enough not to appear in the middle of a busy Muggle city.

As the sun went down, she was relieved when only a voice found its way next to her, disembodied. A quick, wandless _muffliato_ fixed any issues that might cause.

"Where are we now, Granger?" The voice sounded peeved.

"Follow me, and you might get a surprise," she sneered, in a voice that implied, _It doesn't matter, I'm the captain of this ship_.

And she hobbled down the paved streets.

Hermione should have been used to the stares, but she now realized that everyone at Hogwarts except first years within the first few weeks no longer stared at her. And Diagon Alley was used to her.

Muggle Pisa was not used to her.

She felt a ruddy color creeping hot on her cheeks as she felt the eyes track her limping progress, but kept her head high and her eyes flashing bright with confidence as she tossed her bushy mane over her shoulder.

"If you're trying not to attract attention, Granger, you may want to avoid swinging that nest of Devil's Snare on your head."

The right side of Hermione's lip twitched in vague amusement even as her brows snapped into a furrowed scowl.

She walked in silence for fifteen minutes, and then stopped before the monument, smiling as she craned her head to see all of the magnificent structure.

The leaning tower of Pisa was breath taking at night. All of the lights illuminated its architecture in stark relief against the velvet night sky.

"What is _this_?"

She decided against mocking the awe in his voice.

"The leaning tower of Pisa."

"Why is it leaning?"

"When the Muggle's attempted to force all witches and wizards found into Christianity, a young wizard named Victus Aiolfo suggested they play along so that they wouldn't have to go into complete hiding. He promised the church that he and his family would help build a magnificent bell tower for the new cathedral. As you can imagine, they weren't exactly caring about the quality of their work... It's foundation is weak, and the soil is as well," she regurgitated the facts she recalled.

"How much magic does it take to light this?"

"It's not magic, it's electricity."

And that was how Hermione Granger spent her second night in Italy explaining how a magically built structure managed to allow electricity to function to the ghost of Tom Riddle as they circled the monuments amongst the square.

‡

She apparated to Paris after a day of meandering down the canals of Venice.

Leisurely limping through the streets, she sampled some coffee and pastries as she waited for the sun to set.

When it did, she only heard her last name tersely said, but she put up a _muffliato_ as before and began walking slowly towards her destination. As they came upon the structure, she smiled beatifically at it, craning her neck and squinting her eyes against the sky blushing with the setting sun.

"What's this?"

"The Eiffel Tower."

"What a strange design."

"It's an arch way."

"For what?"

"It was built to be an entry, to be passed through on the way to a world's fair."

Silence reigned for several minutes. Hermione assumed he was admiring the structure lit up against the darkening sky, as she was.

"Would you care to go up?"

"No."

"… Really?"

"This is ridiculous. Can't you see these ridiculous Muggle contraptions during the day, and leave me in peace at night?" he hissed, and she saw a faint glimmer beside her spark into life, and then fade into nothingness again. "Only a filthy _Muggle_ would waste so much time and space on what amounts to a doorway. And only a stupid _Mudblood_ would waste so much time coming to gawk at it."

Hermione had thought wrong.

Her smile faded into a tight lipped, closed expression. As the night darkened around them, so too, did her face. After perhaps twenty minutes of glowering at the unique shape lit up against the Paris night life, she turned sharply and began limping silently back towards the apparition point.

"Mudblood, where on earth are you storming off to now? _Granger!_"

She kept walking.

And that was how Hermione Granger apparated back to her inn, and spent her third night in Italy in a bed warded against ghosts and any external noise, reading a book about Paris, while the translucent but strangely more substantial Tom Riddle silently mouthed argumentatively outside of the invisible barrier.

She didn't spend a fourth night.

She ended her vacation early and went home to Hogwarts, and resumed researching her magical equations, and books regarding hauntings.

She'd grown rather lax over the past month, but she was more than making up for that now.

She didn't notice that the more irritated she grew over Riddle, the less she seemed capable of dealing with the pain of her leg, and the more she drank of her black potion against the warnings of Severus Snape. Nor did she notice that he ended their arguments he started after she took the potion by storming through her, a jarring sensation.

Even after they'd resumed their bickering, hostile relationship from prior to the vacation, she still didn't notice that each time he whisked through her, he was fractionally brighter.

All Hermione noticed was that she still hated Lord Voldemort with all of her soul, but if you asked her about Tom Riddle, she would hesitate before she would confirm that yes, she did hate him.


	5. Act V

**Author's Note**: I could make up all sorts of fancy schmancy excuses as to why it took a bit longer for this, but they'd all be elaborate and involve me being busy with a super villain schedule. In reality, I am just deliciously tan from some time on the river.

Big thanks to Megii for pointing out a rather crucial fact, I changed a bit in that chapter to make it more appropriate. Honestly, what would I do without you reviewers helping guide me through this virginal process and making me reconsider and strive to be better?

Probably bang on pots and pans with a big stick, actually…

**Disclaimer**: (sigh) No. Just no.

**Act V**

‡

_In which, Hermione Granger says the most heinous things_

Hermione was bored out of her mind.

Snape, sitting to her left at the round table, appeared to be just as thrilled to be here. For the life of her, she could not imagine why they had to review their syllabi in a round table discussion with the other professors _every year_. Probably some asinine Headmasters' Creed, to infuriate the teaching staff with redundancy, considering all syllabi had to be turned in to the Headmistress two weeks prior for review and approval, regardless of the fact that Hermione's own syllabus had not changed in the past two years, and barring any sudden breakthroughs in the world of transfiguration (her own or otherwise), it would probably stay the same for the next three years.

She resisted the urge to loll her head back and release a petulant, exasperated sigh.

The biting ache spanning from her hip to her knee was not helping matters. This was why she taught standing up and pacing. Well, the pain from inactivity _and_ the amusingly terrified expressions on the firsties faces when she swept up to them and caught them passing notes or slacking off. A surprisingly silent approach, and then the dramatic clack of her cane as she departed with whatever goods she had confiscated, each click spelling impending doom.

She really had judged Professor Snape far too harshly as a child.

Snapping her attention to the matters at hand, Hermione noticed that the Headmistress was drawing the meeting to a close after Neville's review of the herbology syllabus. Standing and shuffling her papers together with her weight leant up against the table, she put them neatly into a never-ending folder and shrunk it down to pocket size, stuffing it into her robes and grasping her cane. She made her way over to Neville, smiling at him with such friendliness and caring that she appeared to merely be a slightly more haggard, thin Hermione of old.

"Hullo, Neville. I'd say I'm excited for the new year, but I know these next two weeks are going to fly by and make me miss summer all over again."

Neville's round face melted into a smile. He had certainly not changed much from being a young man, besides having gained an aura of personable courage, and a habit of killing snakes that entered the greenhouses without prejudice.

"Oh, I don't know, Hermione. A new school year means fall will be here soon, and the cool weather will keep the more hostile plants sedate enough to study."

"Who would have known that Professor Longbottom wanted to sic vicious flora on unsuspecting students. I didn't know you had it in you, _Neville_," came a silky voice from behind them, making the name sound like a filthy curse.

Neville's eyes widened, and he made excuses to Hermione as they reached the bottom of the staircase and made record time without running down the corridor. Hermione cast a bored glance at Snape over her shoulder, and then began walking as he fell into step beside her.

"Honestly, Severus, after all this time, you'd think that you could find a new hobby besides terrorizing Neville."

"Nothing else makes my black heart pitter pat like Longbottom practically wetting himself to get away from me."

"Why, Severus, I'm proud of you. You've managed to grow a heart? How long did it take to brew _that_ potion?"

Snape scoffed. "You wound me, Professor. The agony is unbearable."

Hermione snorted as they turned the corner, and Snape paused his long stride.

"I've found some research material I think you'll find valuable regarding your problem, Granger. Would you care to accompany down to my study?"

Hermione appeared thoughtful for a moment. "I can discuss it for about an hour and a half, and then I've got to go. I've promised Neville I'll keep him company and help him while he plants the whipping roses."

"Granger, you cad. Toying with my emotions and then running off to Longbottom?"

Hermione let out a sharp bark of laughter.

"_Ha!_ Emotions. You're adorable when you jest, Severus."

And they set off to the dungeons chuckling amongst themselves.

‡

Hermione was normally not hindered too terribly much by her limping gait. She could outpace most of the students when school was in session through sheer determination and stubbornness. But her pace was slow on the way to the greenhouses, her eyes dark and introspective. Why, she could almost be a brooding heroine, except for the fact that Hermione Granger did not brood. She vicious chewed her way through quandaries and spat out solutions.

_Severus Snape had not touched his tea, and that made Hermione a tad nervous._

_Because nothing got between Snape and his tea. _

_Setting his cup down on the saucer on his desk, he leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, his elbows resting on the arms of his chair. _

"_I'm not going to beat about the bush, Hermione."_

_Uh oh. Snape most certainly never called her by her given name except in the most dire of circumstances._

"_I still have no idea __**why**__ the ghost of Tom Riddle has latched onto your magic. But by all diagnostic testing, we cannot even determine where it is anchored. We must fear the worst and assume that it is irrevocably tangled amongst it. The accounts of circumstances like this are few and far between, and no solution was provided in any of them. So far as I can tell, it has happened only when there are extremely strong, tangible emotions from the person affected, towards the person that's soul has been either sequestered, or drawn back by the emotional energy."_

_Snape paused, sipping his tea._

"_The problem is, usually their emotions are a bit…"_

"_Less hateful?" Hermione helpfully supplied, setting her tea on the table beside her and ignoring it all together now._

"_Precisely. I will need time to develop a potion to highlight where your magic ends and his soul begins in the tether, so that we might separate them without causing permanent damage, 'lest you end up a squib or hopelessly damaged."_

_Hermione laughed ruthlessly, a sharp, cold sound._

"_Hopelessly damaged? That's quaint, Severus."_

Opening the door to the greenhouse, Hermione called out quietly and calmly to Neville, so as not to startle him while he was dragging the whipping roses towards the pile of pots that he had, the tiny sproutlings sluggishly waving as if in a breeze. The cooling charm on them kept them from violently snapping their thorned tendrils at Neville, so far as she could tell.

"Hullo, Hermione. There are dragonhide gloves on the table over there. You'll need them, seeing as how we can't transplant them while they're under the cooling charm. It would kill the roots."

"I was wondering why we had to plant roses that were temperamental in warm weather in the middle of summer," she responded drily.

Neville smiled sheepishly. "Thank you for helping. No one else will get near the nastier plants."

Hermione slipped on her dragonhide gloves, gave a second for the sizing charm on them to shrink them to her hands, and set her cane up against one of the planting tables so that she could kneel beside Neville and drag a pile of pots closer to her. She hid her grimace as she knelt and felt the tendons in her right leg scream in protest.

"_More of the potion? I only just gave you that last supply at the beginning of the month."_

"_Very astute, Severus. And it is now the end of the month."_

"_Granger," he drawled, his face impassive but his eyes even darker than usual, "this potion isn't candy that you can pop every day. It drains a portion of your magic and is highly addictive. You need at least a week between doses for your magical core to restabilize."_

"_And I haven't been popping it every day, _Snape_. But the weekly dose no longer works. I've built up an immunity to its effects. So unless you've got another potion that can function the same way, so that I might actually sleep through the night again, please do share," she responded, her voice strained._

"_I've got an experimental potion I've been working on for the pain, one without the same side effects, but just as potentially addictive. I'll supply you with another months worth, and then we will attempt the new potion at the end of the month. I believe we shall resume experiments to repair your muscle tissue around the same time, I've found a promising lead."_

A promising lead. Ha. Five years of teaching at Hogwarts. Five years of promising leads, and her mangled leg was still not any better. They'd managed to keep the damage from spreading any further, but what was done, was done. She reached absently for one of the tiny, angry roses, gently loosening its roots from the dirt it was in.

_Hermione was a force to be reckoned with on the battle field. She did not have the raw power that Harry did, nor the unadulterated fury that Ron did, but Hermione had her own weapon. A calculating mind, attention to every detail going around her, and an encyclopedic knowledge of spells and hexes. Adrenaline kept her moving, but it also made her shake… but perhaps that was simply the fear making her shake. _

_Hermione Granger was terrified, but she was more stubborn than any of these Death Eater fucks. She knew that much. She would not back down._

_Her voice didn't quiver as she flung spell after spell, spinning wildly in abject terror that someone would sneak up behind her, but it cracked under the pressure of that terror. Her eyes were wild with it, and lent her a deranged look with her frizzy mass of hair standing practically on end, the tips singed from the magic in the air._

_And when Voldemort fell, she keened the wildest, most savage victory scream that was ever heard. At least, that was how it felt ripping out of her throat, startling her. Hermione Granger was not supposed to make such noises. And if she hadn't, perhaps she would have heard the spell snarled as she did. All she knew was that something hit her in the middle of her thigh, and sent her toppling to the ground. She heard Ron screech out a spell, heard the Death Eater behind her hit the ground with a devastating thud, as she got a mouthful of dirt, little bits of it turning to mud on her face from the sheer volume of sweat. _

How fitting_, she had thought, _mud on the Mudblood_._

_She blamed the delirium from the sheer volume of pain that forced incoherent warbles and guttural moans from her throat. Inhuman sounds, as the boys carried her hastily back to the castle and the rest of the Order finished off what Death Eaters were fleeing, or making a final stand, and tending to the wounded. The living did not yet have time for those dead on the battlefield. _

Hermione smiled grimly. Severus had said, with guilt in his eyes after she had begun teaching shortly after leaving University, that had he not been lying in the Shrieking Shack, choking down antivenin and potions to stave off his down death, he probably could have stopped the damage before it got so bad with carefully chosen potions. But she'd waved him off. Madame Pomfrey had done her best, forcing potions down her throat as hastily as she could while Hermione choked on them, keening wildly as her veins began to spider black trails through her skin and muscle, the tendons feeling as if they were twisting and tearing irreparably.

Because they were.

Something silvery and unnaturally bright appeared beside her, startling her. Startled her enough so that she jerked, and the whipping rose managed to lash a tendril onto the unguarded part of her arm and dig in as hard as it could.

"_Wandgobbling FUCKWITS_!" she bellowed, clumsily trying to extricate the thorns from her skin. They had a slight venom in them, as a fire ant did its bite, nothing lethal- except in large amounts- but enough to make it burn.

Like a mother fucker.

"_RIDDLE_! I told you not to appear like that, I am _tired_ of you startling me like that, you candy ass, undead SWOT." In her haste to extricate herself before the burning got worse, she tipped over the pot and it crashed clumsily over, breaking in half and leaving the whipping rose thrashing angrily on the ground.

And then Hermione realized something.

Neville was staring with abject horror at the ghost. He'd not heard account of young Riddle, but he'd been filled in by the other professors on who this entity had been in life. And you know what? Hermione's face was slowly mirroring that horror.

But for different reasons.

"It's daylight."

"Yes, it is, Granger."

His form was unnaturally bright, but appeared paler with the sunlight filtering through him.

"You can't fucking appear in daylight," she snarled.

"Apparently I can."

And then he pointed at her little pot, and mimicked a swish and a flick with his finger, and it repaired itself.

"_Ghosts can't do magic_," she screeched, standing swiftly and stumbling into the table as her leg screamed in protest.

Her mind was numb.

"Apparently, you're wrong."

And that was when Neville bolted out the door, presumably to go get assistance, or to escape Hermione's wrath as she let loose a string of slurs and curse words so foul, that they are most likely illegal in several countries. So gruesome and terrible and disgusting, that we dare not put it into print 'lest it be repeated.

Tom Riddle's ghostly head tipped backwards, and laughed in broad daylight as if it was the funniest thing in the world.


	6. Act VI

**Author's Note**: I kept writing while inspiration had struck. A quick note on Riddle.

I'm not trying to make him some Muggleborn loving, change of heart character. Nor am I trying to make him immature.

But I think if I was stuck within a 200 yard radius of someone, over the several months I might start to at least tolerate their presence. And I would certainly find mischievous ways to entertain myself.

I 'unno. Maybe I'm getting far too Mary Sue in this. Tell me if I am, I'll fix it, I promise! Complete edit, I swear!

I also like to say that I was never 100% clear on when the Death Eaters were started, but it was my impression that they were officially named that and created as such after his Hogwarts years. Feel free to correct me on that.

**Disclaimer**: Who took the cookie from the Harry Potter jar? Who me? Yes. Yes, it was me. I don't own it though.

**Act VI**

_In which, Hermione Granger is terribly daft_

‡

"_You absolutely bloody daft, reckless wench_! **Not only** did you specifically ignore my warnings about following proper dosing procedure with your pain potion, you managed to create a revolutionary new side effect. Shall I put a label on the vial next time, _may bloody well strengthen the bloody ghosts of bloody teenage dark lords_?"

It had only taken twenty minutes of fast paced, razor sharp conversation between Severus Snape and Hermione Granger to figure out what had happened, after a smirking Riddle had, in his arrogance, let slip a few clues about a particular potion.

After all, the damage was done.

Hermione was stone faced as Severus railed at her.

Riddle's ghost was quietly smug as the potions professor bellowed, the sound echoing around the greenhouse.

Hermione could not recall a time she'd seen Snape run so fast.

Riddle's ghost could not recall a time in his short stint as a tag a long that the surly professor had shown so much true emotion.

"I cannot find the _words_ to express how insolently _stupid you are_! There is nothing in the English vocabulary that can encompass how much this hinders our progress on any of your problems, or how _terrifyingly mind-bogglingly absurd your actions have been_!"

"Would fuckbiscuits work?"

"I AM IN NO MOOD GRANGER."

‡

To say Hermione was haggard and half insane after a week would be a vast understatement.

"Do you need some time, Hermione, from teaching? I can fill in for you for a short portion of time, after the first two weeks of school have passed."

Hermione turned exhausted eyes to McGonagall.

"I'll consider it, Minerva. Let's see how those two weeks go, first."

‡

The other professors would not stop casting worried glances at her during the meals leading up to start of term.

Severus would not give her _any_ potions, for fear of potential effects on her already psychotic situation.

As such, she was not sleeping except for perhaps thirty minutes a night, and maybe dozing at her desk in her private research study adjoining her private rooms. The pain was nigh unbearable and made her horribly boorish.

Neville had made the mistake of remarking on the similarities of Snape and Hermione lately, and found himself at the end of two wands.

Minerva was acting like a mother hen.

"And I swear on Merlin's flaccid _dick_, if you do not stop levitating my shite around my study I'll begin the experimental stage of my research hypothesis regarding you right this very minute, you dick faced, shit-eating undead mongrel," Hermione snarled without looking up from her furious scrawling.

Oh, she'd actually said her last bit of her complaints aloud.

Her rather expensive, first edition of _Terrible Transfigurations and Transmogrifications_ kept zooming around her study, anyway.

She bunched her hands up in her hair and let out a short scream of frustration, ink dripping from her quill-still in hand- into the rats' nest of her hair. If it was bushy to begin with…

Let's just say that exhaustion, paranoia and irrational mood swings from potion withdrawals did not improve upon the frizzy mass.

"Really, Mudblood, you're so short tempered these days."

Hermione was far too busy muttering 'fuck' under her breath over and over to dignify that with a response.

Riddle wafted over towards her desk, staring at her research papers.

"Why, that will never work," he remarked.

Hermione grit her teeth, and as such, her words came out as an almost masculine growl.

"And _why_, pray tell, _is that_?"

"It would require you to be dead or dying. Nothing in your equations or theorem suggests that you're extricating dead energy from living energy."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why are you being so helpful?"

A translucent grin stretched across his face, giving him an almost manic look.

"Because there's no way for dead energy to be compatible with living energy within a spell. I've been reading over your research as you've done it, and you see it, too. You simply can't, just like the magic that I've got now can only work on inanimate objects. You just cannot address the two energies in a single spell, ritual, or otherwise."

Hermione's face twisted into an ugly howl of fury.

"REDUCTO!"

Her wand had been pointing at Riddle, who disappeared as the first syllable left her lips. Because if intent was the foundation of spellcasting, than if anyone had a chance at getting a good ol' _reducto_ to work on a ghost, it was Hermione Granger at that moment. Malicious intent had put her face into a rictus of agony and fury as the spell went through nothing and hit the wall opposite, sending shards of stone and splinters of wood flying into her private chambers.

Hermione sat in her chair, her face red and irate, breathing heavily. Riddle faded into view slowly, hovering just beside her.

"Go on and say it," she spat, "_Stupid_ Mudblood."

Riddle glanced down at her, then back at the massive hole in the wall.

"I am willing to admit that there are some Mudblood's who are entirely too smart for their own good, and may make at least somewhat competent witches."

Hermione's eye twitched.

"That was rather silly, though, Granger."

With the dust still floating in the air and landing in the disheveled mess of her hair, and sitting in her chair facing a pile of rubble, Hermione began to howl with laughter.

‡

"Lord Vagina."

"I shall fling a rock at your head with a rather intricate, high velocity levitation spell I found in one of your books, Mudblood."

"I apologize," she sneered, without sounding apologetic at all.

"What is it you want?"

"Why did you tell us about what you were doing?"

Riddle was silent, and staring thoughtfully at the arithmantic equation regarding a research theorem of hers on the blackboard in her newly repaired study. They'd been arguing venomously for three days over the subject.

It had nothing to do with severing Riddle from her magic.

She left Severus to the idle, hopeful research. She was beginning to think his near death experience a decade ago had muddled with his senses when it came to that which could not be altered. It had given him something silly called _hope_.

After several minutes, the ghost finally spoke.

"I delight in knowing that I can feed off of your magic at any time that you are vulnerable, and you can do nothing about it."

She did not speak to him for two weeks.

‡

The students were going to put her into a private, padded room in St. Mungo's with their questions regarding the ghost.

And Riddle himself was going to make sure she was wearing a straitjacket while she was in there, for she was certain if she let herself start pulling out her hair and gouging out her eyes, she would never stop.

The brand new first years liked to ask questions.

Riddle liked to answer those questions inappropriately.

Hermione stood slowly before her class, and each click of her cane sounded very finite. Sharp staccato. Danger and doom pervaded that sound.

"Pay no mind to this daft ghost. The first one of you ingrates to ask him another question from this point forward will have a week's worth of detention."

The students looked petulant, so she had to amend that.

"With Professor Snape."

After all, she was still mad at him for not allowing her any more pain potions.

The students were curiously docile that afternoon.

‡

"Severus, have you read the Prophet this morning?"

Severus snorted into his porridge and cast a lengthy stare at Hermione that spoke volumes about his feelings on the Daily Prophet.

"Oh, I know, you ill-tempered swot-"

"-ill-tempered swot? _Granger_-"

Hermione continued on as if he had not interrupted.

"-but they're reporting Death Eater attacks on Muggleborns after all this time. The vermin are starting to crawl from the woodwork again. If this article is to be believed, they left a message about blah blah blah, blood purity, blah blah blah, returning their organization to its former glory, blah blah blah, further fear mongering."

Severus finished swallowing his bite of porridge and set his spoon back into the bowl.

"I've no doubt that the aurors shall have no problem rounding up whatever stragglers have evaded capture to recruit yet more daft bints."

"Yes, I imagine Harry and his hero complex are already arming the cavalry."

"_What_ exactly is attacking Muggleborns?"

"Death Eaters."

"Come again?"

"Death Eaters."

"I _mean_, Granger, what is a Death Eater?"

The ghost had appeared directly to her right, and appeared as if he were sitting on a chair, when in fact, he was sitting on thin air.

Hermione stared at him for the space of several moments, before she began to laugh uproariously. So loudly, in fact, that the students nervously looked up at the Head Table. Professors Granger had been putting Snape's record as most vile, ill-tempered teacher to the test at the beginning of this school year, so her wild laughter struck fear in the hearts of the innocent children. Only the firsties assumed that this was her general demeanor. The rest of the school body wondered what on earth could have soured the strict, but usually fair teacher's disposition. Needless to say, withdrawal hadn't been at the top of their list.

"I forget how young this part of your soul is sometimes. Death Eaters are members of the cult that _you_ started," Hermione responded, and her face began to darken and show animosity towards Riddle. "They're the vermin that you trained to be the spawn of Hades himself, and we're slowly eradicating them like the filth that they are."

She smiled cruelly as Riddle's face began to show signs of agitation.

‡

Tom Riddle was warded from the classroom after a few rather prejudiced comments. Apparently, his Mudblood could ignore them being directed at her, but would spit out enchantments and wards barring spirits from the classroom faster than she could scandalize the students by saying '_Tisiphone's tattered tits' _to save the precious little snowflake's from hearing it_. _He was currently working on dismantling the wards, but she was rather clever in how she layered them.

Two stragglers were apparently coming in several minutes late, their footsteps loud as they sluggishly made their way to Granger's classroom.

Riddle vaguely directed his attention to them, only half focusing, as he needed to put most of his attention into getting into the classroom if he was going to aggravate Granger after lunch. Their conversation slowly came within earshot.

"… can't believe Snape's giving us detention for an _accident_. Here's hoping Professor Granger doesn't blow her top off."

"G'luck with that, mate. The bint's got something up her arse these days, absolutely insufferable she is."

Riddle gave them all of his attention.

"Snape's probably rubbing off on her, y'know?"

Sly adolescent winks were terribly garish and galling, Riddle discovered.

And then, when the ghost's eyes narrowed at the pair, both of them seemed to trip on thin air and fall face first into the closed, locked door with a heavy thud.

The spirit heard Granger curse briefly in the classroom, and then unintelligible mutterings in an apologetic tone, more than likely for the curse.

_Ha_.


	7. Act VII

**Author's Note: **I'm a terrible person, and should not be trusted with nice things. I am the reason we can't have nice things. So, I'm back. It's been forever… I just read through everything, and am just as nervous as the first time about writing. But I'm picking the mantle back up. I won't make excuses- I shouldn't have been absent for so long without saying anything. But to be honest I've been in a terrible place during my time away, and I've just recently come out the other side. Mature audiences only for my life, honestly. Death, pain, poverty, all the makings of an excellent TV drama.

**Edit: **Working on some formatting issues, hopefully this go around it works...

**Disclaimer: **I literally own nothing. Check with my bank.

**Act VII**

_In which, Hermione Granger contemplates homicide._

**‡**

Hermione was certain that her eyelashes were welded to her cheeks. She struggled to open them, cursing fluently at her alarm spell. She could see it flashing from behind her eyelids, and hear it chirping merrily at her.

"_Wake up! It's a beautiful day outside, and I'm sure the view will be lovely from your classroom while you enrich the lives and minds of the impressionable youth!_"

Hermione growled, almost ferally, as her eyes popped open and she withdrew her wand from underneath her pillow and waved it roughly in the direction of the far wall, cancelling the spell as it began a cheerful monologue on the benefits of waking up with plenty of time to eat the most important meal of the day. Blinking blearily, she rubbed the heels of her palms viciously into her eyeballs as she sat up.

"I didn't picture you as the sort to wake up to something so… upbeat. Here and I thought you only rise from your coffin encased in the soil of your homeland to the tolling of many great bells at midnight, with the curses of the oldest gods rumbling throughout your chambers."

She responded with, "No one ever thinks to change those alarm spel-," before she grasped what was going on.

Pausing with her palms to her eyes, Hermione bared her teeth and promptly rolled herself out of her bed, a guttural moan sharply escaping as her bad leg hit the cold floor. She whipped her wand towards the sound of the voice, and came face to face across the room with Riddle hovering almost primly on top of her dresser, the mirror making his glow seem exponentially brighter in the dim room.

"And just _what exactly _do you think you are _doing _in my _quarters_," Hermione hissed, fury dropping her voice an octave lower.

"Did you know that your tangles have tangles? I've never seen anything quite like it."

"**RIDDLE**!" Her voice rose to a crescendo, rising even higher at the end of the word.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you. I think some dogs at that _Hagrid_," the name rolled off of his tongue with distaste, "fellows hut might have been able to, though."

"_How did you even get in here?_" Shrill did not quite describe the decibels she was achieving.

"Your wards are terribly complex, but… predictable," Riddle replied as he wafted over to her bookcase, filled to the brim with books, leaving very little space for her sparse amounts of knick knacks and photos, "Really, it's your fault. You've warded me from your classroom so much that I know exactly how you tend to layer your enchantments. A partial overlap of two foundation spells, with a tight weave of protections surrounding, and sealed with gusto."

Hermione stared wide- but bleary- eyed at the ghost, as he picked up a photo of a younger version of her smiling brightly between her two best friends, the tiny version of her continuously wrapping her arms around the boys and squeezing them tightly as she grinned.

"But… _why_?" Her voice was just a bewildered whisper.

Tom turned his eyes to her sharply, setting down her picture with a quiet click. He mulishly looked away, running his fingers over, and occasionally through, tiny knick knacks and photos. He finally turned towards her, floating closer so slowly as to almost be imperceptible.

"Do you have any idea…" here, he paused, before his brows drew closer together and his murky light dimmed in displeasure, "Have you ever been trapped? Had someone else solely responsible for where you can go, how far you can explore? Someone you don't even _like_? Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months, and you don't sleep. You don't eat. There is nothing to break apart minutes from hours, and in the wee hours of the night, you're stuck in…. a _hallway_."

Brown eyes met with silvery black, clashed, and then looked away.

"I'll leave some books, parchment and quills out there while I sleep, but stay out of my quarters, Riddle. That's too far. If you'll recall, I don't just dislike you, I _hate_ what you represent. And I'm stuck with you, too," she replied in a voice that only just barely wavered.

"I'm not some _dog_ to be left _scraps at night_," he growled out, his voice so low it was almost sibilant.

"Just get out so I can change," Hermione uttered on a long-suffering sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose as she grabbed her cane from where it was propped near her bed and began limping to the en suite bathroom.

Riddle faded from view, so slowly it was almost mutinous, as he drifted towards the door.

So it was something of a surprise when a disembodied voice remarked with distaste that her underwear would inspire nuns to sainthood, could evoke religious praise from the celibate monks of Tibet, would shame even Artemis, the virgin huntress, herself at how distinctly impure she was in comparison to such matronly undergarments.

"**_RIDDLE_**! I will eviscerate you and scatter your mince meat across the vast expanse of the dead sea if you do not_ get out of here this __**instant**_!"

The students wondered that day at the dark chuckles coming from no one, and nowhere, in the Transfiguration hallway that morning.

**‡**

* * *

><p>"I think you should take Minerva's offer, Hermione."<p>

Hermione arched a brow, and paused with a fork full of egg halfway to her mouth.

"Oh, dear. This much be an intervention if you're deigning to use my given name, Severus," she remarked rather drily.

"We're four weeks into the term, and the students are beginning to whisper about the Mad Eye Moody incident. How no one took it seriously until it was too late, and '_you know how oddly Professor Granger has been acting,_'."

"I think it's a bit premature to think that I've been locked in a trunk, and my life taken over by a polyjuiced imposter. I mean, really. What sort of imaginations do these children have?"

"The sort that was raised by war veterans."

Sighing, she gave up on breakfast as a lost cause and stared moodily out at the students, steepling her fingers in front of her mouth with her elbows braced on the table. When she caught the eyes of some of the students, they gulped and looked away quickly.

"It's just the lack of pain potions, Severus. I'll acclimate to the pain, and the withdrawals… will fade with time. I've come this far, they can't last much longer, right?"

She pushed her plate away, as if her speaking of the matter had brought the intermittent nausea to the surface at her beck and call, with a cool sweat popping on her forehead.

Severus tapped a finger on his upper lip, keeping his expression bland as he leaned back in his seat, ignoring his own breakfast in favor of scrutinizing her. Finally, he murmurred quietly, so as not to be overheard, "You know as well as I that magical addiction is brutal. You can't properly kick the habit without detox potions, which I'm not willing to risk having even more unexpected side effects. You need bed rest, and a calm environment. And not a classroom where you can accuse your sixth years of stealing your quill when it was tucked behind your ear and coloring your hair gold."

"You heard about that? Not one of my best moments, I admit."

"And then… there is the trouble of Tom Riddle."

The ghost faded into view between them on cue, arching an eyebrow at the Potions professor.

"He does not belong in a classroom, where he can disrupt the learning environment. And your nerves are already…. Fragile, for lack of a better word, enough, without having to keep him in check, and your students, while teaching, and constantly expending magic you truly cannot afford to use whilst healing."

"I can't just leave him in the corridor, not anymore! If I dare leave him a book, he destroys it in a fit after he's read it! He terrorizes students on their way to class!"

"Why do you both insist on referring to me as though I am a familiar of some sort?" Tom scowled as he ground this out.

"Just take him on walks during free periods to break up his day and keep him entertained so you can bloody well teach if you insist on that rather _foolhardy _endeavor?"

"Oh, yes, Snape, I'm the bleeding _poster child_ for walking as recreation," she drawled, leaning forward to hiss, "If I enjoyed walks anymore, I'd get a _fucking pet_."

"I am not a dog!" The ghost sharply interjected in his otherwordly voice.

"Will you _both just_ _shut_-," Hermione realized several things at once. She was yelling. She was standing up. And every eye in the Great Hall was on her. "the _front door _and leave me the French alone so I can get some frilling rest," she finished lamely. But at least more quietly.

Hermione Granger had not blushed since she was twenty-two.

Imagine how peeved she was that her cheeks were brighter than freshly ripe apples as she stalked from the hall.

**‡**

* * *

><p>"I think I'll take you up on that offer for rest, Minerva. I'm just… not getting along very well, right now," Hermione whispered from where she was slumped in achair in the Headmistress' office, "The seventh years think I've lost my head entirely. Some of them even flinch when I'm perfectly fine and ask them a reasonable question."<p>

"It's for the best, Hermione. I'll tell them you've taken medical leave, let you recollect yourself."

"For the best, entirely," said the smirking ghost, barely visible in a shaft of sunlight.

**‡**

* * *

><p>"Just… don't <em>touch<em> anything," Hermione muttered from where she sat at her desk, eyeballing Riddle through the door that led from her study to her private quarters.

"'_Except the books, parchment and quills, and the other, neutral objects which we have previously discussed_,'" Tom quoted right back, though he may have made it sound more vicious than she did.

Or perhaps he made it sound nicer than it came from her. It was hard to recall, with the mood swings.

Three days into quarantine for the safety of the precious little snowflakes, and besides the occasional fit of paranoia, claustrophobia, swearing, inarticulate fury at the unfairness of it all, and unbearable pain, she was feeling minutely more relaxed. Without the added pressure of making sure she met the Ministry mandated minimum curriculum, or hurting anyones feelings, she even managed to brush her hair every day. Sometimes it was evening before she remembered, but the tangles were kept out on a fairly regular basis. Why, it almost resembled real people curls at the moment, albeit with more volume than was strictly necessary.

"And stay out while I'm sleeping," she reminded him firmly, looking up from her parchment and pausing her hand from where it scrawled out runes, "When I sleep, you may have the study."

"That should be about an hour a day," he remarked snidely.

"Never you mind my sleep habits," she rebuked, frowning as she touched a finger to the hollowed out dark circles beneath her eyes unconsciously, "I hardly think the _undead_ have any place telling me what's what about proper bedti- what's this?"

Looking to her window curiously, she saw a tiny black owl pecking at one of the panes.

"An owl at this hour of the night?" She arched an eyebrow, before looking quizzical, "At least, I _think _it's a poor hour of the night."

A quick _tempus_ reassured her it was an entirely improper time of night for owling.

Flicking her wand at the window, the owl flew in and dropped the parchment while flying over Hermione, before soaring back out into the night. The temporarily replaced Transfiguration Mistress promptly began extricating the pieces of parchment to the tune of, '_fucking owls with no Gods given sense of any fucking manners or fuck all die in a fire you fucking fucker fuck_,' quietly, but increasingly more ferocious before she got the parchment unrolled, the window shut, and sat before the fire in her quarters to read.

Riddle, who was busy playing her enchanted chess set- it was sentient enough to provide a multitude of challenging games in its very own manner of artificial, magically enhanced intelligence- glanced up, only to watch as Hermione's eyebrows climbed higher and higher until they were practically in her hairline.

He set down the pawn he was about to move, and drifted closer. He paused and frowned when she held her hand up, as if to stop him from further progress. He did, but scowled magnificently when he realized he had stopped at her gesture. He would have continued further, but her next action stopped him dead in his tracks.

She started laughing.

Loud, echoing belly laughter, deep from her gut and doubling her over, the parchment falling from her limp hands as she chortled. Ten minutes in, as she was just beginning to calm down, he swept over in an icy gust and picked up the letter with an arched eyebrow at her, and began to read.

_Mudblood,_

_Filth like you has no place teaching our children. Hogwarts is no home for abominations to nature. With the rise of a new order, we're going to eradicate your kind from all of the wizarding world, guarantee the pure bloodlines never risk being sullied by a mudbloods presence in the hallowed halls of wizarding institution. Do you remember Alecto Carrow? Your severing hex ended her life. I watched her die on the battlefield. And you cut down many others on that day. I will make that little hex that mangled your leg seem like a swat from a kitten. I will paint the stones of Hogwarts with your filthy blood, and then slaughter your little mudblood lambs as you gasp your last dying breath._

_Signed,_

_A very old friend_

"Who on earth would write such a thing?" Tom uttered with a scowl of distaste.

Hermione's eyes got wide, and she covered her mouth. But it happened. The dreaded chuckle snort. Which undid her entirely. She slid bonelessly half out of her chair, shrieking with the maniacal laughter of the cheerfully deranged. When she finally quieted again, all she could do was gasp out,

"Fucking Frygg's frigid snatch, whatever will Harry think when I tell him Lord Voldemort doesn't approve of my fan mail."

**‡**

* * *

><p><strong>Final Author's Note: <strong>Sorry if it feels a bit disjointed, I'm still stretching out the ol' writin' muscles. Next chapter is already in progress, hopefully I can smooth out my story telling soon. Also, FanFiction seems to be taking out my fancy schmancy break up the story symbols, and I'm having a hell of a time getting any method of breaking up the sections to stick. If you read the first incarnation uploaded of this chapter, I apologize for how rambling it must have been with no space to signify a jump in tangent for me. It doesn't like asterisks, alt-254, nothin'.


	8. Act VIII

**Author's Note:** So, this would have come sooner, but with Thanksgiving holidays, we really were slammed by surprise relatives. Surprise! Feed us! _Oh no no no, you don't understand, I don't even like people a __**little bit**__. _This is not something you can say to relatives, for the record. Well, you could, but suddenly you seem very churlish. So it's late! Don't blame me, blame my family. I certainly do. You may notice this chapter is heavy on the dialogue, less on the plot progression. I refuse to apologize for this. These things have been bouncing around in my head.

On a side note, **aberlioness** pointed out that I used Americanisms. Thank you for pointing this out, it's hard for me to notice these things. I'm sorry, guys. :C I promise to scour this fanfic and find every reference to the season fall and change it to autumn as soon as I have some free time. If you spot any others, let me know. I'm so painfully American… deep south American, too. Which, as any American can tell you, is _ridiculously American_. I'm rambling, I'm sorry. But seriously, I bleed sweet iced tea, and I'll tell y'all I reckon it's down yonder any day of the week. *gigglesnort*

**Disclaimer:** I'm so sorry I bastardize your work, Mrs. Rowling.

**Act VIII**

_In which, Hermione Granger has no patience for black knights in white armor._

‡

"No, _absolutely not_, you're daft, and I'm right, and _you know it_! Stop being so bloody _petulant!_"

"The sixteen year old ghost calls me petulant because he can't verify his own work beyond the realm of reasonable doubt? That's _rich_," came the sneering reply.

"Oh, dear. It's worse than I thought," came a sudden baritone.

Hermione blinked owlishly from where she lay on her bed, her parchment spelled to hover above her as if nailed to a board. Her quill paused, and a single droplet of ink dripped from its tip to where her face lay directly beneath.

"It's not enough I have to deal with a _ghost _invading my quarters and dismantling my wards if I even bother to waste the energy to put them up anymore, now Professor _bleeding_ Snape barges into my quarters?"

The quivering mass of algorithms floating in a glowing multi-colored glory above her stopped swirling, slowly halting its' progress of making sense of her corrections and alterations of her work.

"Two points I need to make. One, you've not exited your room, sent any correspondence, or ordered from the house elves more than once a day in the past two weeks. Two, you left your study door open, and your bedroom door ajar after _you were owled a death threat._"

Hermione chortled, "Imagine a Death Eater barging in here, only to find me researching the probabilities of Transfiguration research in medicinal charms with ikkle Lord Voldemort-"

"- insufferable Mudblood, I have told you to _stop calling me th-_"

"-in _pyjamas_ no less! Well worth the _bathing Hogwarts in my blood, baptizing the Purebloods into a new era with a purifying storm of murder and mayhem, stringing my remains across the steps of the Ministry so that the new order may trampled my remains,_" she intoned in a monotonous drawl.

"Granger, do you really need to extrapolate on that blasted letter?" Severus pinched the bridge of his nose with a long suffering sigh.

"Oh, I'm not, I've gotten three more," she replied cheerfully, grabbing them from the stand beside her bed and waving them in the air.

"_**And you've told no one**_? Of all the ridiculous, childish-"

"-I feel we've had this conversation before-"

"-**WHY ARE YOU SO BLOODY CHEERFUL?**"

"Riddle has discovered that cheering charms on my bedspread have a residual contact effect, despite the magical polarities between our magic. Really fascinating, you should apply it to your research into this whole severing our entwined souls and what not. My notes are on my desk regarding the matter. Still not going to make me more agreeable on your shaky logic regarding your arguments to my research, Tom," she finished in a falsetto.

"That's enough. Give me those letters, I am taking them immediately to the other two thirds of your trio in law enforcement."

He cast a quick _accio_ before she could argue.

"Abso-fucking-lutely not, you magnificent wanker. I'd sooner chop off Aphrodite's tits and risk an eternity besotted with lawn clippings than have Harry or Ron see me like this."

Severus Snape found how cheerfully she said this disturbing, and said as much rather colorfully as he cast a _finite_ at her bedspread.

"You'd have me handle her without a cheering charm? She's absolutely barking without it," Riddle argued.

"I can not handle this. If you don't like it, go to the bloody study for all I care, but-" Biting off his words mid-sentence, Snape turned in a billowing of robes and stalked from the room, slamming both doors shut behind him and locking them.

‡

Hermione was glad that Severus had not dragged Harry or Ron into this.

Hermione was fit to be tied at his second option.

"Granger," drawled a long since heard, but well remembered voice.

"Malfoy," she said in clipped, icy, but moderately polite tones.

"I understand you're receiving death threats?"

A well-manicured hand held up said death threats, rendering the question rather asinine, rhetorical, and therefore a pointless waste of her patience.

All she got was a raised, platinum eyebrow when she said as much.

Thirty minutes into his roster of his questioning, she lifted a shaking hand to her aching head and scowled Malfoy into silence.

"I don't see what bloody good it does to question me about an untraceable parchment, written by a dicto-quill, sent by an elusive owl," she snarled.

A blank stare greeted her in return.

"It's still protocol to ask, Granger. As you should well know by now. You received," here, he paused to check his black leather-bound notebook, "no less than four death threats within six months of the end of the war. Now, are you aware of any person, or persons, that may harbor a grudge towards you, whether recently or otherwise?"

"_Megaera's warped cunt_, stop being so _bloody polite_! Why on _earth_ should I have to answer questions about a Pureblood agenda to a _fucking Pureblood, much less a former Death Eater_?"

"One, I know them better than anyone else in MLE. Two, for that very reason I am the squad leader of a team dedicated solely to rounding up my former… colleagues. Penance at first, but now I rather enjoy my job. Three, unless you want Potter and Weasely to find out about your… _potion problem,_" he drawled slowly, but not unkindly, "I am the next best option."

Hermione let out an inarticulate screech, burying her hands in her hair.

"One more _Gods damned list of points out of another fucking Slytherin_-"

"Again, are you aware of any person, or persons, that may harbor a grudge towards you, whether recently or otherwise?"

"_**Bitch tits!**_"

"Granger, really," came a smirking otherworldly voice from nowhere.

‡

"You should order some stew from the elves. Easy enough to keep down even with spider webs for nerves, and you could do with a meal."

Hermione looked up from penning her letter to Ginny and stared for a full minute at the apparition standing in the doorway to her study.

Finally, she responded with a curt, "Stop it."

"Pardon?" A silvery black eyebrow steadily climbed up a moon white brow.

"Stop that this instant."

"What, exactly, am I stopping?" Irritation crept into the wavering voice.

"Being _polite_ to the _Mudblood_. I find it unnerving, and I will ward you thrice over from my quarters if you persist, to Hades with the students in the hallway!"

Rage crept into Riddle's translucent face, as he spat back, "Leave it to a Mudblood to be so uncouth as to tell _me _to stop deigning to speaking to her as a human being. Did it ever occur to you that if you die of starvation, I've no idea where that leaves _me_?"

"Much better," Hermione replied after a moment, with satisfaction. She went back to penning her letter.

Riddle _deigned_ to ignore her in favor of levitating her more fragile knick knacks about her office haphazardly.

Said items only flew at a higher velocity when she told him it was uncouth to sulk.

‡

"Would you care to explain to me why you're being so _civil_?"

"Who would you have me speak to? _Students_? That awful Potions Professor of yours? No one else will give me the time of day."

"You are eternally at the age of a student, Riddle," she replied drily.

"I never got along with students when I truly was a student. They were beneath me then, as well."

"And for the records, that awful Potions Professor is especially snarky around you because future you _ruined a large portion of his life_."

"_Exactly._ I've no one else to talk to. And you get _snippy_ when I put you in your place."

"_Put me in my place_? I'd sooner be fucked ten way to Hades in ways that would make Persephone herself cringe than-"

"Exactly what I'm talking about."

Her mouth agape to respond, brow furrowed and fury blazing in her eyes, she was spared verbally lashing him when a rap at her window sounded. Espying yet another tiny black owl, she burrowed her face into her palms and let out a small scream.

When she lifted her head, her eyes were red and her cheeks were lividly pink in her pale face, but her mouth was set and there was no wetness on her skin.

"Let's get on with it, then."

Gripping her cane in a white knuckled fist, she stalked in a savage limp to the window and opened it jerkily, her hand slipping on the latch once, twice, before a grunt of frustration and she slammed it open so hard the panes rattled. The owl dropped the rolled parchment and beat a hasty retreat, but Hermione's wand was out quick as a flash and hexing the thing before it was five feet from the window.

She watched it dissipate into a black haze.

_Interesting_.

"Transfigured, or hexed to self-destruct?" She murmured to herself.

"Riddle, if you're still being ridiculously and inappropriately chivalrous for a young version of a tyrannical evil despot, could you pen a note to Malfoy for me? I'll send it tomorrow, but I'd like the reminder on my desk."

She began unrolling the dreaded parchment.

"I might _consider _it if you agree to take me somewhere out of this bloody castle for-"

A puff of powder, faint and with an acidic aroma, burst from the scroll when she broke its seal.

Hermione Granger fell unconscious to the floor.


End file.
